JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MEMO SAYS PUBLIC 'MUST BE SATISFIED' OSWALD WAS LONE ASSASSIN

November 25, 1963

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MEMO SAYS PUBLIC 'MUST BE SATISFIED' OSWALD WAS LONE ASSASSIN 

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) As the remains of our martyred 35th President of the United States were interred at Arlington National Cemetery today, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach* sent a memorandum to Bill Moyers**, President Lyndon B. Johnson's assistant, which said:

"It is important that all the facts surrounding President Kennedy's Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people...that all the facts have been told."

Three main points are then made by Mr. Katzenbach:

"1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; & that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted.

2. Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off.

3. The matter has (not) been handled....with....dignity...Facts have been mixed with rumor & speculation.  We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered."***


*Nicholas Katzenbach, born in 1922 in Philadelphia, served in the US Army Air Force in WWII & was a POW for 2 years.  

He earned a degree from Princeton & graduated from Yale Law School in 1947.  

Katzenbach served as Assistant Attorney General & Deputy Attorney General in the Kennedy administration & then was appointed Attorney General by LBJ in Feb. 1965.

                Nicholas Katzenbach
            White House Photo (1968)

**Bill Moyers, born in 1934 in Hugo, Oklahoma, was an intern for Senator Lyndon Johnson in 1954.  He earned a degree in journalism from the University of Texas in 1956.  

Moyers was liason between LBJ & JFK in the 1960 presidential campaign & served as Deputy Director of the Peace Corps in the Kennedy administration.

After JFK's death, he became Special Assistant to President Johnson.

                       Bill Moyers 
                 Special Assistant
           to the President (1965)

***This memo, of course, would not have been public knowledge on 11-25-63.  It was issued on the day following Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby.